


Housewarming

by Sholio



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Character Study, Curtain Fic, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-15 23:28:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9263588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: Iris wants to make her new place with Barry feel like a home.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [trinaest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trinaest/gifts).



Having a new, empty space to furnish for herself and Barry is a lot more fun than Iris expects.

It's not like she's never picked out furniture before. But this feels different. The other places she's lived were furnished mostly out of necessity on a shoestring budget, or were full of things picked out by other people. This time, she's got a decent job and she can start from the ground up, making her shared space with Barry look like a home.

And the place he picked out is a beautiful space to decorate. Barry took both their jobs into account when he chose it; the apartment is conveniently located about halfway between STAR Labs and the Picture News office. There's wonderful light, an open plan, and that gorgeous exposed brick. It's such a nice space to work with that she hardly even knows where to begin.

It helps that Barry doesn't seem to care; she's pretty sure that he'd be just as happy if they moved in the bed from her old apartment, put it in the center of the floor, and called it good. So she's got carte blanche to decorate however she wants. And there are a few necessary things that he didn't think about, such as closet space, mainly because Barry owns about four shirts. Quietly she adds some sort of free-standing wardrobe to her IKEA shopping list.

But it's so much _fun,_ putting together her new little home. She has some vacation days saved up, and she takes a few of them in the post-Christmas week to visit flea markets looking for cool, quirky items to brighten up the basic set of furniture that's being delivered in a couple of days. Every new item she picks up makes her happier.

Once word begins to seep out into their circle of friends and family about their new place, there are the inevitable housewarming presents as well. Her dad practically showers her with housewarming gifts, or at least he tries to; the biggest problem she has turns out to be charitably finding ways to fend off her dad's efforts to buy her things that don't match her decorating scheme at all. Finally she talks him into gift certificates, and things go much smoother from there.

Cisco gives them a potted cactus, on the principle that "even you two probably can't kill it." Caitlin gives them cookbooks. Wally gives her a music mix labeled "Music For Moving," with the shy admission that he couldn't think of anything else. She later learns that he quizzed both Barry and their dad to find out what kind of music she likes. She's desperately touched that he tried so hard. This having-a-younger-brother thing is still new to her -- to both of them -- but they're making it work.

(The less said of HR's gift, the better, although Iris really wants to know when he found time to visit a sex toy shop, and even more so, whose credit card he used to pay for it, and whether that person knows about it.)

The week between Christmas and the New Year always feels like new possibilities, but even more so this year. There's slushy melting snow in the gutters and leftover Santas and reindeer tilting drunkenly on still-green strips of lawn as she walks home (home!) from the Thai place down the street. A new address equals a whole world of new restaurants and other local businesses to explore; this neighborhood has a bunch of takeout places, which she likes already.

When the year rolls over, she and Barry are going to celebrate it in their new apartment, with brand-new furniture, new drapes, and the potted cactus sitting in the window. And quite possibly HR's gift will come into play later in the evening, though she is never, ever telling him.

It'll probably last a week before some supervillain sets fire to the place or blows it up, she thinks with the sort of wry fatalism that has resulted from the last three years of life in Central City, but in the meantime she's got good insurance, and a brand new life to live.


End file.
